Session details: NBC Studios (December 17, 1945)

Charlie Parker session details

December 17, 1945 (15 items; TT = 30:41)

NBC Studios, Hollywood CA

AFRS Jubilee (B)

Show chatter

J.B. "Dizzy" Gillespie (tpt); Tommy Allison (tpt); Benny Harris (tpt); Stan Fishelson (tpt); Walter Robertson (tpt, tb); Jack Carmen (tb); Ollie Wilson (tb); James "Trummy" Young (tb); Johnny Bothwell (as); Hal McKusick (as); Eli "Lucky" Thompson (ts); Al Cohn (ts); Joe Megro (ts); Serge Chaloff (bs); Boyd Raeburn (bss, arr, cond); Ike Carpenter (p); Steve Jordan (g); Mickey Mendi (b); Shelly Manne (d); David Allyn (voc); Ginnie Powell (voc); Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman (ann); Vernon Smith (ann)

1	Introduction (Vernon Smith, Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman)	1:25
	VS: "Hi-diddle-diddle, hi-diddle-dee, hang on to your socks, pal, it's Jubilee! And latch on to this glory train, 'cause tonight we're gonna have ourselves a session. The sheep's in the meadow and the cow's in the corn, and as for the cats, they're riffy and saucy this meetin' time, known as the following characters we're gonna hit you with -- Boyd Raeburn giving the beat; Ginnie Powell; Dizzy Gillespie and his Rebop Six; Dave Allyn, and sundry others, not to mention your master of ceremonies, as nice a group of men as you've ever met, to wit, Ernie 'Bubbles' Whitman..." EW: "Thank you, thank you, Vern Smith... You're on the right track, Jack. We're ahead of a gutbucket gulch, so show the man your ticket and we'll get off the dime with that sensational combo that's been drawing raves, from the rock-bound to the sunny. It's a ladder of the distinctive music that's solid as Gibraltar, Boyd Raeburn and Orchestra... Are you ready, Boyd? BR: "Ready and steady, Ernie." EW: "Then knock us some stuff, Jack." BR: "Well, you say it, I'll play it..." EW: "Boyd Raeburn shoving off, with cuttin' out with 'Tonsillectomy', on the count of three..."
2	Tonsillectomy (B. Raeburn)	2:43
3	Introduction (Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman, Boyd Raeburn)	1:05
	EW: "Yes indeed, yes indeed, that was hot as a ten-dollar pot in a penny-ante game." BR: "Well, thank you, Ernie. It's a pleasure to pop the gaskets in Hot Horn Hall." EW: "Uhh, and you're the gate that can swing it, boy. Are you hep, pappy? Are you solid? Do you pepper your gravy with grace notes?" BR: "Well, I don't know, Ernie. But, uh, as we say in our neighborhood, 'a zoot, a voot, hoot, and oh you kid' (?)." EW: "Oh, murder. Boyd, you sound like one of the killers from Amarilla." BR: "Well, not exactly, Ernie, I'm more like, ah, one of the pills from Beverly Hills." EW: "And a mighty hep band you've got, whaddya call it?" BR: "Well you've heard of 'leap and lurch with Emory Durch'?" EW: "Yes, I've heard of that." BR: "Well, our motto is, 'drip and droop with the Raeburn stoops'..." EW: "Now, now... I hear you fellas were a bit on the classic, modern side." BR: "Well you must be thinking of, uh, that lad who lashes out with those mellow cantatas, and here is he now, a Purple Heart vet, propelled by jet..." EW: "Yes it's the cat who invaded north Africa, got himself decorated, came home and established a solid beachhead in vocal [undecipherable]. Give him a hand. It's Dave Allyn... 'Picnic in the Wintertime'..."
4	Picnic in Wintertime (B. Raeburn)	2:55
5	Introduction (Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman, Dizzy Gillespie)	1:00
	EW: "Thank you, thank you, Dave Allyn... That was a mellow bellow indeed. And now, nothing could surprise me. I wouldn't even raise my eyebrows if Dizzy Gillespie walked in and said, 'Hello, Ernie Whitman...'" DG: "Hello, Ernie... Whitman." EW: "Eyebrows, as you were. Well, solder me to a tuba and let me double in brass... Well, latch me onto a bullfiddle and call us Siamese twins. If it ain't the big blow himself, Mr. D. Gillespie... Well, what brings you to Hot Horn Hall this year, Mr. G.?" DG: "Well, I just happened to be walkin' through the corridor, Ernie, and as I passed this door my trumpet made a sharp left, and here I am." EW: "Well, DG, where your trumpet leads, we shall folla... What are you gonna be citin' for your faraway fans?" DG: "I'd like to blow 'em a bundle of specs and spots I put together myself. It's been recorded as 'A Night in Tunisia'." EW: "Well, it's Dizzy's original and arrangement for the Raeburn clan, so [undecipherable] and filter it..."
6	A Night in Tunisia (D. Gillespie-F. Paparelli)	3:07
7	Introduction (Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman, Boyd Raeburn)	0:59
	EW: "Oooh, thank you, Dizzy Gillespie, you really blew the trumpet in the velvet vernacular... And now a special treat. Boyd Raeburn has cooked up something cosmic. I hear it's kinda long hair, which goes to prove that this talented lad is full of surprises." BR: "Well, there's nothing surprising about that, Ernie." EW: "No?" BR: "My entire musical background is fairly [undecipherable]." EW: "Really..." BR: "Yeah. Of course, because my great-great-grandfather was one of the first American hit tune writers." EW: "Oh, what was it called?" BR: "'Thou Must Have Been a Beautiful Infant, 'Cause Infant, Look At Thee Now'..." EW: Heh-heh-heh-heh, tell me more, tell me more." BR: "Well, his name was Squire Frank Raeburn. He crossed the Delaware with General Washington. Hence the term 'a squire from Delawire'..." EW: "Ohh... Ohhh..." BR: "So, Ernie, in honor of my great-great grandfather, I'm going to have Ginnie Powell sing a song he wrote himself. It's really a sleeper." EW: "It's a sleeper, huh? What's it called?" BR: "'Rip van Winkle'..." EW: "This I gotta hear. So, thou may fire when ready, men..."
8	Rip Van Winkle (B. Raeburn)	3:12
9	Introduction (Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman)	0:08
	EW: "That was a sonata in D-sharp as solid as Plymouth Rock...
10	Dizzy Atmosphere (D. Gillespie-C. Parker)	4:17
11	Introduction (Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman, Boyd Raeburn)	0:20
	EW: "And now comes something for the lovers of classical, something that has the modern sweep of tomorrow. Something that's..., oh, Boyd, you tell 'em..." BR: "OK, Ernie. This is the elegy movement from our Jitterbug Suite." EW: "Blow us the way, Boyd, blow us..."
12	Yerxa [Elegy from Jitterbug Suite] (B. Raeburn)	3:47
13	Introduction (Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman)	0:21
	"Thank you, thank you, Boyd Raeburn and men. That blew our bonnet, as if our bonnet isn't blue enough. Well, gang, it looks as though we're about to wrap up another rhapsody of riffs and stash away another satchel of stomp. But before we lumber into limbo, here's one more parcel of hot by those boys who know how to cook it on the front burner. Boyd Raeburn and his many men wrap up the session with 'Eagle Flies' -- on the upbeat!"
14	The Eagle Flies (B. Raeburn)	4:17
15	One O'Clock Jump (C. Basie)	1:05
	EW: "Yes, indeed, that did it, that did it. A million mellow thanks to all you [undecipherable], the hottest thing in sound tonight..." VS: "This is the Armed Forces Radio Service."


1 Introduction (Vernon Smith, Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman) CD: RST JUBCD 1011-2, Canby CACD-1004
2 Tonsillectomy CD: RST JUBCD 1011-2, Canby CACD-1004
3 Introduction (Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman, Boyd Raeburn) CD: RST JUBCD 1011-2, Canby CACD-1004
4 Picnic in Wintertime CD: RST JUBCD 1011-2, Canby CACD-1004
5 Introduction (Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman, Dizzy Gillespie) CD: RST JUBCD 1011-2, Canby CACD-1004
6 A Night in Tunisia 12" LP: Verve B0032477 CD: RST JUBCD 1011-2, Canby CACD-1004
7 Introduction (Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman, Boyd Raeburn) CD: RST JUBCD 1011-2, Canby CACD-1004
8 Rip Van Winkle CD: RST JUBCD 1011-2, Canby CACD-1004
9 Introduction (Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman) CD: RST JUBCD 1011-2, Canby CACD-1004, Stash STCD 535, Charly Le Jazz 21, Masters of Jazz MJCD 121, Philology Volume 44 (W 875), Definitive DRCD 11250, ESP-Disk 4050
10 Dizzy Atmosphere CD: RST JUBCD 1011-2, Canby CACD-1004
11 Introduction (Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman, Boyd Raeburn) CD: RST JUBCD 1011-2, Canby CACD-1004
12 Yerxa CD: RST JUBCD 1011-2, Canby CACD-1004
13 Introduction (Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman) CD: RST JUBCD 1011-2, Canby CACD-1004
14 The Eagle Flies CD: RST JUBCD 1011-2, Canby CACD-1004
15 One O'Clock Jump CD: RST JUBCD 1011-2, Canby CACD-1004

These items were included in Jubilee #163 (also repeated in Jubilee #209). Parker does not play on any of these numbers, although "Dizzy Atmosphere," performed by Dizzy Gillespie and His Rebop Six on December 10 , is included on the Jubilee recordings between the announcements listed above as items 9 and 10. A different version of "A Night in Tunisia" included on Philology Volume 8 (W 80) and Masters of Jazz MJCD 121 is a fake, as the notes to MJCD 142 observe: "We now know that it is an incredible five-part montage, taken alternately from 'A Night in Tunisia' by Dizzy, the January 1951 Birdland version with John Coltrane, and another 'A Night in Tunisia' by Parker, the February 26, 1949 Royal Roost version with Kenny Dorham."

This is probably the session that Gillespie alludes to in his remarks to Slim Gaillard during "Slim's Jam" (recorded for Bel-Tone and usually dated December 29) that he's got to leave to make a Jubilee date. According to Rainer E. Lotz and Ulrich Neuert, the AFRS ledgers show that December 17th was the last recording session of the year. (See The AFRS Jubilee Transcription Programs: An Exploratory Discography, Vol. 1-2 (1985). Dennis M. Spragg has updated the discography and maintains it on the Glenn Miller Archive website, http://www.colorado.edu/amrc/glenn-miller-archive/gma-catalogs/jubilee.) It seems more likely that both the Beltone and Jubilee sessions took place on December 17, when Gillespie (but not Parker) was present at NBC Studios for a Jubilee session.

Whitman's announcements were used in a number of different Jubilee recordings. For example, part of the introduction to "Shaw 'Nuff" from December 10, and included on Jubilee #162, was re-used as the introduction to "Groovin' High" on Jubilee #165. There are many other such examples. See Lötz and Neuert for the gory details.

Gillespie and Parker were booked at Billy Berg's Club in Hollywood from December 10 until February 3, 1946. Following this engagement, Parker remained in California while the rest of the group returned to New York.

Thanks to Leif Bo Petersen for help on this session.